{"id":90215,"date":"2025-02-15T19:17:06","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T19:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/marketing\/media-buyers-slam-tag-and-mrc-after-damning-csam-report\/"},"modified":"2025-02-15T19:17:06","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T19:17:06","slug":"media-buyers-slam-tag-and-mrc-after-damning-csam-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=90215","title":{"rendered":"Media Buyers Slam TAG and MRC After Damning CSAM Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Advertisers are losing their faith in the Media Rating Council (MRC) and the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), industry accreditation organizations <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adweek.com\/media\/ad-buyers-blast-google-amazon-and-others-after-ads-appear-on-site-hosting-child-abuse-content\/\" target=\"_blank\">who are responsible<\/a> for\u00a0upholding rigorous brand safety standards.<\/p>\n<p>An Adalytics report <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adweek.com\/media\/senators-accuse-google-amazon-monetizing-child-abuse-content\/\" target=\"_blank\">last week found MRC- and TAG-certified vendors<\/a>, including DoubleVerify and IAS, were monitoring ads on image-hosting site imgbb.com, that had been flagged by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for hosting child sexual abuse material (CSAM).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While the initial ire focused on the adtech vendors, the accreditation bodies are now facing backlash as well.<\/p>\n<p>Eight ad experts\u2014a mix of brand marketers, agency media buyers, and watchdog leaders\u2014told ADWEEK they felt there was little visibility into accreditation practices, poor oversight of certified companies, and lax compliance enforcement.<\/p>\n<p>Four media buyers, speaking on condition of anonymity to preserve industry relationships, questioned the value of the MRC\u2019s and TAG\u2019s brand safety certifications. They said accreditation processes are insufficiently rigorous and felt that, in many cases, certifications are boxes to be checked for vendors.<\/p>\n<p>One agency buyer<strong> <\/strong>said both groups need to regain the ad industry\u2019s trust after certifying IAS and DoubleVerify, which failed to block ad placements on imgbb.com.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for the MRC declined to issue a statement before responding to Senators Marsha Blackburn\u2019s (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal\u2019s (D-CT) Feb. 7 probe into the MRC, TAG, and others for allegedly monetizing imgbb.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"row justify-content-center\">\n<div class=\"col-12\">\n<section class=\"section section--teaser section--teaser_partners section--teaser_partners--horizontal px-0 py-4\">\n<div class=\"section--teaser_partner\">                         <a class=\"link-reset text-decoration-none\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adweek.com\/media\/doubleverify-brand-safety-updates-adalytics-report\/\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adweek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/doubleverify-backlash-csam-2025.jpg?w=640&amp;h=360&amp;crop=1\" alt=\"The platform had added new exclusion categories and reached out to agencies dedicated to child safety.\" class=\"image image--partner\"\/><br \/><\/a>                     <\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A veil of secrecy<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>The accreditation process for the MRC and TAG both happen \u201cbehind closed doors,\u201d and it\u2019s also unclear how they ensure continued compliance of the companies they certify, said Ruben Schreurs, group CEO at media investment analysis firm Ebiquity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Both firms require audits for companies seeking certification. But while the MRC validates both organizational practices and technologies\u2014usually with help from professional services firm EY\u2014TAG\u2019s third-party auditors focus primarily on compliance with TAG policies, sources said.<\/p>\n<p>But ADWEEK sources criticized the fact that neither organization publicizes their specific audit criteria.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not clear on what value either provides at all at this point. They both do these audits with a veil of secrecy,\u201d said one buyer.<\/p>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<p>TAG CEO Mike Zaneis said his organization\u2019s certification is thorough, and provided examples of questions: \u201cDo you have the right policies? Do you have the technology to enforce those policies in an effective way? Are you monitoring your practices? Are you evolving your practices? Are your systems secure? Is there separation between your brand safety team and your ad sales team, for example, because they may have competing goals?\u201d<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Is too much expected of accreditation firms?<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Six sources were more critical of TAG than the MRC. They questioned TAG\u2019s opaque auditing practices, lower standards for certification, and willingness to allow self-reporting.<\/p>\n<p>While both TAG and the MRC conduct annual re-audits of certified organizations to ensure their practices are up to snuff, TAG also requires quarterly self-audits\u2014and ADWEEK sources questioned their reliability.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAny standard that relies on self-reported documentation is not rigorous enough. Testing methodologies should be public, replicable, iterative, and peer-reviewed,\u201d said the owner of a buy-side consultancy, speaking on condition of anonymity. \u201c[Or] blind spots will continue to persist.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zaneis characterized self-reporting as just \u201can added layer of accountability\u201d between third-party audits. <\/p>\n<p>He also said it\u2019s not TAG\u2019s fault when organizations like IAS and DoubleVerify fail to identify sites like imgbb.com as non-brand safe.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s unrealistic for TAG to prevent the monetization of all illicit or illegal content online, he added. \u201cThe internet\u2019s a big place,\u201d Zaneis said.<\/p>\n<p>Zaneis told ADWEEK it is unfair to focus on one domain that slipped through the cracks, since many other sites with user-generated content have hosted CSAM.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAre the senators claiming that Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all of Google, all of Amazon, all of Discord as a platform, all of Yahoo, all of Reddit, are illegal CSAM sites and thusly, should be demonetized?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advertisers are losing their faith in the Media Rating Council (MRC) and the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), industry accreditation organizations who are responsible for\u00a0upholding rigorous brand safety standards. An Adalytics report last week found MRC- and TAG-certified vendors, including DoubleVerify and IAS, were monitoring ads on image-hosting site imgbb.com, that had been flagged by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[30574,14422,43722,18035,10999,19435,43721,13273,10930,41329,1791,3912],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-90215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing","tag-ad-tech-industry-news","tag-buyers","tag-csam","tag-damning","tag-media","tag-media-news","tag-mrc","tag-programmatic","tag-report","tag-slam","tag-tag","tag-technology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Media Buyers Slam TAG and MRC After Damning CSAM Report - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=90215\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=90215&page=2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Media Buyers Slam TAG and MRC After Damning CSAM Report - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Advertisers are losing their faith in the Media Rating Council (MRC) and the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), industry accreditation organizations who are responsible for\u00a0upholding rigorous brand safety standards. 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